10 Jul 2022  |   06:57am IST

Goa’s road to ruin

The execrable condition of roads is just one symptom of the shameful dereliction of duty by the Goa’s elected representatives and their cabal of complicit bureaucrats

It is raining gloriously in Goa, but it’s very hard for citizens to enjoy it because the roads have fallen apart to the worst condition in living memory. In the “bad old days of socialism” at least the dirt roads were flat, and the age-old drainage systems built by our ancestors remained intact. Now there are only axle-breaking moonscapes, and dangerously flooded highways. Adding considerable insult to injury, the worst damage is precisely where the maximum money has been squandered, in just one more painful example of the criminally callous anti-people “development” being imposed on India’s smallest State.

This catastrophic misgovernance is especially evident in the capital, where hundreds of crores have vanished in the name of Smart City, but it’s impossible to recognise the very same streets where the biggest names in Indian politics paraded with so much bandobast before the elections. Most notably, when the home minister visited last October, every main thoroughfare in Panjim and Taleigao was “hot-mixed” as smooth as glass so swiftly and efficiently that Rohan Khaunte (the Porvorim MLA was then in the opposition) sarcastically invited Amit Shah to “visit every month” and “tour the entire state” so everyone could reap the benefit.

Back then, Khaunte posted on Twitter: “#GoaGovt thinks of Good Roads only when Netas come! Till date we have been suffering bad roads and now selective roads where BJPs top brass will pass are being suddenly repaired. This Govt works for progress of @BJP4Goa not #Goans. #CallingOut.” But fast forward past the elections, and also after the former independent was strong armed into the ruling party to serve in Pramod Sawant’s cabinet, and now the ambitious 48-year-old is busily deflecting blame in every opposite direction. Earlier this week, with an impressively straight face, he expressed full confidence in the same government he had condemned, to deal with the same problem that he had complained about just months ago.

The execrable condition of roads is just one symptom of the shameful dereliction of duty by the Goa’s elected representatives and their cabal of complicit bureaucrats. In the absence of accountability, they are running rampant with incredibly ill-conceived scam infrastructure projects. As the 42-year-old retailer Rohan Govenkar put it rather pithily on Facebook a couple of days ago: “All you expressing shock over the pitiable condition of roads in Goa right now: There's nothing alarming or surprising about it. When you have ordered for dung, you have ordered it with full congnisance that you will receive dung. Don't be baffled over not getting mutton biryani.”

Govenkar is part of Together for Panjim, which he describes as “an association started by a group of concerned citizens to come together and approach elected representatives, and recommend solutions to the dozens of problems plaguing the town.” Via email, he elaborated, “The solutions are not too hard: citizens have to only voice them to their representatives and make it known that they are refusing to be taken for granted. The representatives should feel threatened by the public's warnings, and should feel compelled to act on developing better roads and bring them in par with the roads of those countries like Indonesia and Malaysia where the rainfall is much higher.”

Here, rather ruefully, Govenkar recalls how “the roads were smoothened prior to the arrival of a certain politician a few months ago, but the smoothening job was as much as a temporary installation as the pandal and stage set for his address to the public. Such privileges are only meant for the 'kings of democracy' and now that the 'kings' are pleased, the servile and meek junta are only expected to content themselves with the belief that they managed to satisfy the kings. As a citizen, I feel hopeless that we have not developed the culture of placing our demands to our elected representatives, and we have failed to put in place systems where we can make them accountable for their action (and inaction).”

How did it get so bad in Goa, despite its citizens ranking so high in the crucial matrices for education, wealth, and human development?

Govenkar says “as a society, we have failed to understand democracy. It’s evident by the way we treat elections as a cheerleading squad would, rather than what it ideally should have been: as informed consumers of public services. Only an ideal democracy can save (us), because that’s the only way we can (register and) achieve serious will.” But even that won’t be enough says Blaise Costabir (who is managing director of GMI Zarhak Moulders at the Verna Industrial Estate, and also a columnist for this newspaper), because “the people who make the rules are the ones benefiting from the shoddy work, so they cannot be relied on to make the change.”

The veteran entrepreneur – and respected leader of the business community in Goa – told me the situation has become drastic: “As an avid cyclist, I have been paying close attention to road conditions (and) this is the first time that within the first showers roads all over the state, which were recently done, were all washed away. For example, the Panjim-Margao road, which was supervised to completion by late chief minister Manohar Parrikar, was a beauty for years. But now the threat of waterfalls and landslides on this same road - especially approaching Cortalim - is very real, and the newly opened Verna-Borim road is an absolute disaster waiting to happen.”

Costabir travels regularly around the country for work. He says “in other places, the new highway projects are really good, but when we come to Goa the quality of the same projects is pathetic.

Starting with the Atal Sethu – about which the less said the better – and the other flyovers; were they waiting for the rains to decide where to install drainage? The waterfalls that resulted are an extreme danger to pedestrians and 2-wheelers alike. I fear the only way out is that something drastic happens which will force the courts to demand accountability, and then things will change.”

 (Vivek Menezes is a writer and photographer, and co-founder and co-curator of the Goa Arts + Literature festival)


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